


Through Shapes and Shadows

by Vagrant_Blvrd



Series: Spin the Sky [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 10:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14330427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrant_Blvrd/pseuds/Vagrant_Blvrd
Summary: Later, Gavin won’t be able remember what drew his attention to a shadowed corner of the marketplace.





	Through Shapes and Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> I saw [This post](https://vagrantblvrd.tumblr.com/post/172970532786/probablymemerpgideas) and had the idea for that AU where Ryan's been cursed and Gavin stumbles on this knife, and then shenanigans, I guess? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Later, Gavin won’t be able remember what drew his attention to a shadowed corner of the marketplace. 

There's an elderly woman stooped over from age with a ragged blanket spread on the ground before her and an odd assortment of wares to sell. 

Seeds in little cloth bags for the coming planting season. Blood-red roses for a sweetheart. Bolt of cloth with gold threads woven into it that gleams even in the shade. A pair of daggers, perfectly matched that has him eyeing them thoughtfully before he spots the knife beside them.

Leather wrapped around the hilt a dyed dark red with a single dark stone set in the pommel above the image of a stylized bull.

“Ah,” croaks the woman, glint in her eye as she sees the way Gavin can’t seen to take his eyes off of the knife. “That’s a special one, dear.”

Gavin blinks, turns his attention to her. 

Wrinkled face and sharp eyes as she lowers her voice, sibilant hiss to is as the knife up and holds it out to him. 

“Weapons like this one choose their wielder.”

Gavin laughs, nervous, uneasy. For all that she seems to be a kindly old woman selling her wares like any other merchant at the marketplace, there’s something about her that unsettles him.

“It is lovely,” he agrees to avoid seeming impolite.

He prefers his bow and quiver, but when it comes to bladed weapons he tends to favors things like daggers and throwing knives. 

The woman laughs, dry, raspy thing, and pushes the knife on him despite his quiet protests.

It’s warm, although he supposes it could be from the woman’s own body heat, and well-balanced in his hands. Seems perfectly weighted for him.

There’s a faint buzzing in the back of head, sensation of gentle curiosity poking at his mind. Sluggish, slow, as though just waking - 

“None of that now, eh? There’s a good lad,” the woman says, snatching the knife from his hands as a feeling of alarm hits Gavin before suddenly being cut off completely.

That - 

“What was that?” he asks, hand against his temple as he sways because his mind feels strangely bereft, _cold_.

There’s a calculating look in the woman’s eyes now, head cocked to the side as she watches him. 

“I told you before,” she says, “it’s a special blade.”

Unspoken, he hears, _"For the right price, it can be yours."_

========

Michael’s not going to be happy with Gavin.

Forever telling him to watch his spending, save against hard years like they’ve had in the past. Droughts, floods, disease. Other calamities they endured before finding a plot of land just outside a small village.

Quiet, peaceful enough.

There's no need for him to purchase a new knife, and _yet_.

Several coins passing hands and the old woman had laughed, as she handed Gavin the knife. Wished him good luck with it, and shuffled off to fuss over the roses.

There’s a low hum in the back of his head, the same sleepy curiosity now tinged with amusement, and Gavin slows to a stop.

The path home is long and winding and he won’t reach it until well after dark if he takes the main road. His eyes slide toward the dark line of the woods and the worn dirt paths he knows like the back of his hand.

It would shorten his trip a great deal, get him home before it’s too late, but the dangers are greater.

The knife is a line of warmth against his hip – residual heat from the sun, perhaps. A stray thought in his head _what harm could there be?_ is what tips him over the threshold of indecision.

Has Gavin’s feet carrying him off the road and through the overgrown grass. 

He hesitates a moment at the edge of the woods, trees tall and imposing over him, calls of birds and other animals deep within.

Worries his lip between his teeth because there have been reports of some kind of animal attacks recently, wild dogs or some other creature. Several people have been killed already this month, and still he intends to go through with this.

“This should go well,” Gavin mutters, shaking his head as he crosses into the woods.

========

It’s not a wild dog, or even a wolf.

=========

Arrows do nothing against the thick hide of the creature that chases Gavin, crashing through the trees behind him. 

He’s trying to get enough distance to turn, aim for its eyes, but it’s _fast_. Far quicker than its appearance would imply.

Gavin can see how some would mistake it for a wild dog. At first glance he had thought that’s what it was. A dark form snuffling at something on the ground. He’d intended to give it a wide berth, but it had sensed him somehow.

Shift in the wind, footfall he hadn’t quite silenced, or something else and its head had snapped up. 

Turned his way, something glistening on its muzzle and the horrified realization that followed when his gaze fell at the ground at its feet. The crumpled form that might have been a human body at some point.

And then it had charged, maw opening to let loose a terrifying howl and Gavin had reached for his bow. Managed to fire off an arrow that struck true, but all it had seemed to do was enrage the beast further.

He can hear Michael’s lecture now, as he leaps over fallen logs and ducks low-hanging branches. Calling him an idiot, a fool, for straying into the woods like this even though he’d known about the increased danger. That people had been killed, and what did he think would happen?

Gavin lands badly as he hurdles another obstacle tangle or rocks and underbrush and his ankle turns. Sending hims crashing to the ground, pain spiking in his ankle and up his leg.

He tries to push himself up, to keep running but his ankle won’t support his weight fully. Manages a hopping little limp that sends pain flaring through him with each awkward step forward.

The creature howls behind him again, too close this time.

Fear, then, bright and choking as the creature closes in, low guttural growling as it leaps for him. Forepaws hitting him in the chest bearing him back down under its weight.

Dark, mottled skin with patches of matted fur. Mouth lined with yellowed fangs dripping with saliva and breath that smells overwhelmingly of rotting meat. Putrid and nauseating and this _thought_ in Gavin’s head, burning heat at his hip where the knife sits.

_The eyes! Aim for the eyes!_

Gavin fends the beast off with his forearm lodged against its throat. Fumbles for the knife and stabs at its face.

It shrieks when he manages to slash its muzzle, pressing more of its weight on him.

 _The eyes!_

Gavin grits his teeth, annoyance and anger surging through him because he’s bloody well _trying_.

He makes another attempt, head swimming at the combination of pain and adrenaline and breath slowly being squeezed from him under its weight.

The creature bellows, pain and rage and confusion when the knife skates along its tough hide and finds it target. The knife burns in Gavin’s hold as the blade sinks into its eye and into soft tissue.

He scrambles back as it rears up, pawing frantically at the weapon embedded in its eye, but the damage is done. Noises fading to a pained whine before it falls, the woods around him deafeningly quiet in the aftermath.

Gavin lays where he is for a long moment, sucking in lungfuls of air and reveling the fact that he somehow managed to survive. Hasn't had his throat torn out or worse, given the state of bodies that had been found. (Shudders at the close call.)

Eventually he drags himself up, hobbles over to the creature that’s no less terrifying now that it's dead, and bends down to retrieve the knife.

Just short of uncomfortably warm in his hand as he wipes blood and ichor off the blade. Holds it up and frowns.

He could have sworn the stone in the hilt was solid black when he saw it in the marketplace. Volcanic stone or something similar, but now there’s a faint reddish tint to it. 

_Ah,_ Gavin hears, clearly in his head, sounding almost sheepish. _About that._

Gavin fumbles the knife, almost nicks his fingers when he reaches out to catch it, eyes widening as the voice yelps. Alarm and concern and this familiar sort of exasperation he's used to coming from Michael.

_Be careful!_

Gavin looks around, wondering if he hit his head in the fight just now to be imagining voices and such the way he had when he was a child and had a bad fall.

_Um._

Gavin laughs, a little hysterical because no. No, the the voice is very much real and far too awkward to be something his mind would have created.

The slow realization that the faint pulsing buzz that’s been in his head since he laid eyes on the knife is gone and in its place this sense of a presence curled up in his head, _sulking_.

Thinks about the woman, not quite right, and the stories Gavin heard growing up. 

Tales of magic and wonder. Enchantments or curses, depending on how you viewed them, and all of it intertwined. He's heard of objects and weapons that have been magicked, although this is the first he’s heard of one being able to communicate with its wielder.

“Look,” Gavin tries, feeling a fool and pushing on anyway. “I’m sorry for calling you awkward.”

An annoyed huff, shuffling of someone acting a child, sullen and sulky and pointedly ignoring him.

Gavin sighs, and places the knife back in its sheath as he limps over to a small clearing where he sets about seeing to his injuries. Small cuts and scrapes and his ankle, of course. Most likely sprained, and it’s going to make getting home more difficult, that’s for certain.

There’s a faint glimmer of concern in the back of his mind that eases when he uses the knife to cut strips of cloth from his tunic and strong sticks nearby to bind his ankle.

“That should do for now,” Gavin murmurs, wincing as he stands to look for a sturdy branch to use as a crutch.

It’s going to be a long trip home with the presence in his head still sulking, but that will give him time to think. 

========

The knife rouses from its sulk some time later when Gavin stops at a small creek for water and to clean his wounds.

He left the woods behind the moment he could, sticking to the road and making slow progress.

The voice in Gavin’s head sounds sheepish again, embarrassed.

 _Ah, hello,_ it greets. 

Gavin tips his head to the side, feels it waiting for his response.

“Hello,” he says, cautious. 

_I apologize for earlier,_ the knife says. _That wasn't very mature on my part._

Gavin hums, because that’s certainly true, but he’s partially to blame as well.

“Truce?” 

Amusement, this light, bubbling thing in his mind.

 _Truce_.

========

Gavin meets Michael along the road.

Weighed down by his old armor, sword on his back and purpose in his stride.

He stops dead when he sees Gavin, eyes wide with surprise, and Gavin supposes that’s fair enough.

Gavin’s a day late returning, and even though he cleaned himself up as well as he could in the creek, he’s sure he must look a sight.

“Gavin?”

He smiles, tired, relieved.

“Michael they didn’t have grapes, Michael,” he says, leaning heavily on his crude crutch. “Too early in the season.”

He’d gone to the marketplace for fresh produce, a craving for grapes and found a magic knife instead. 

_Cursed,_ it - _he_ \- corrects gently, vaguely amused by Gavin still.

Ah, yes. 

Cursed, and an interesting tale of betrayal and dark deals and a mercenary sealed within the blade Gavin had bought for a handful of coins from an odd woman with unusual wares for sale.

Gavin’s offer to help when he learned the creature that had attacked him in the woods was connected. A tangled web to unravel before all is said and done, and oh, Michael’s sure to have something to say to that.

That light, bubbling feeling again, and Gavin grins as Michael launched in one of his tirades. Berating Gavin for making him worry, doesn’t he know how dangerous is it these days? He could have been mauled by a bear in the woods, or _worse_.

 _He has a point,_ the knife says, warning Gavin again of the dangers ahead if he persists, that the creature in the woods is just the start of things, far worse ahead.

Michael’s staring at him, eyes narrowing when Gavin fails to interrupt him. Offer up ridiculous excuses and explanations knowing it will simply rile him up further.

“What did you do?” he demands, too familiar with Gavin and the trouble he finds – or the trouble that finds _him_.

“It’s a long story,” Gavin says, "if you want to hear it?”

Michael sighs, long and heavy, anger fading as he looks Gavin over.

“No,” he says, short, clipped, but he’s careful when he moves to Gavin’s side and takes the place of the crutch. Hands gentle as he helps him along. “I don’t.”

Gavin hears it for the lie it is, and anyway, there’s still a fair distance until they reach the little plot of land they call home. 

Plenty of time for a story or two.


End file.
